It could be make or break for broadband Britain, with the UK
government set to rule next month on how the industry should make
available broadband services and improve their content.
Speaking at the TMA conference in Brighton on 30 October, Chris
Parker, e-economy director at the Cabinet Office, said the
government would soon make decisions about how to improve broadband
access.
The announcements will follow a report from the Broadband
Stakeholders Group, the industry group set up by the government
earlier this year.
Parker did not reveal much of the government's thinking, but he did
confirm that moves against high access charges were a
possibility.
Pricing, product choice and the lack of good content are the key
areas the government would be considering, as it attempts to
improve the UK's poor position in the European broadband access
table, said Parker.
The UK is number eight in Europe for broadband access, although the
country was a pioneer in creating an open telecoms market that was
supposed to encourage competition and the speedier introduction of
new services.
"Less than 1% of the population in Britain has broadband, even
though two-thirds of the population can physically get it," said
Parker.
He insisted that the government was also keen to prove the doubters
wrong about the New Economy. He criticised those who believed the
government was wrong to spend so much time evangelising about IT
opportunities following the dotcom slump.
"There is no going back," said Parker. "The Information Age is
already well advanced, and despite some ups and downs, the days of
the dotcoms are not over."
One ongoing government initiative is aimed at encouraging one
million small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to be online by
2002. However, it will be difficult to measure the success of this
initiative, as it is not clear whether the one million includes
those SMEs that were already online before the government stepped
with its incentives package, including management support.